Moscow Exchange Sets Dec. 1 for Bitcoin, Ether and USDT Trading

Moscow Exchange plans to open Russia's first organized digital currency market on Dec. 1, starting with bitcoin, ether and Tether's USDT. The exchange announced the date in a press release on Monday, saying pilot trades will begin as financial market participants connect to the new venue one by one.

Trading will run on the stock market technologies the exchange already uses, with every deal cleared through the National Clearing Center, according to the release. Sessions will follow the equity timetable from 6:50 a.m. to 11:50 p.m. Moscow time. The first stage expects pilot deals only, with participants joining the new market gradually as they become ready. From Dec. 1, clients will be able to settle trades the same day or the next day, and the market will also offer swaps for liquidity management. The release spelled those settlement codes as TOD for today and TOM for tomorrow. The first instrument list covers bitcoin, ether and USDT in both anonymous order book mode and negotiated deals between named counterparties, and the exchange said it will widen the range later with international and Russian instruments. Cointelegraph reported the same timetable on Nov. 3 and described the project as Russia's first organized digital currency market.

Interest has come from traditional market firms and their clients, as well as from businesses that already move digital currencies in investment and settlement flows, the exchange said. The release does not name any of those firms, give a count of signed-up participants, or set a date for when the pilot phase ends.

Stage one is explicitly a pilot. The release says deals will be concluded as participants connect to the new market one by one, and it does not describe a full participant base going live on any particular day. Alongside bitcoin, ether and USDT, the exchange said it will add other international and Russian instruments later, without naming them.

Retail access comes with a test and a cap. Non-qualified investors must pass an examination before they can buy, and their purchases are limited to 300,000 rubles a year through a single broker, the release states. Cointelegraph put that ceiling at about $3,700.

The legal basis is Federal Law No. 282-FZ on digital currencies and digital rights. Its main provisions took effect on Sept. 1, 2026, with further rules phasing in during July and September 2027, the exchange said. The law permits regulated trading while keeping Russia's ban on paying for goods and services with crypto, the report noted.

Sanctions hang over the plan. Moscow Exchange and its clearing house have been under United States sanctions since June 2024, the same month the United Kingdom sanctioned the exchange, and the European Union added the venue to its sanctions list in July 2026, according to that report. The exchange's own release does not mention any of those restrictions.

Sergey Mendeleev, founder of Russian cross-border payments platform Exved, told Cointelegraph he expects little demand. "Neither the global nor the local market will notice anything at all," he said, questioning who would trade on a sanctioned exchange at all. He compared the offering to precious metals accounts at Russian lender Sberbank, where customers trade account balances without taking possession of the metal, and predicted uncompetitive conditions. Investors could face "absolutely outrageous spreads," he said, calling the product "an entirely unattractive and unprofitable proposition" for ordinary non-qualified investors. The United Kingdom sanctioned Mendeleev on May 26.

Mendeleev did see a role for the platform in foreign trade, saying a venue where importers and exporters buy and sell crypto directly with one another would be welcome. "I hope this will mark a genuine breakthrough for foreign trade," he said. He added, though, that another intermediary may struggle to compete in a market where traders negotiate over price differences as small as 0.05%.